In Honor of Billie BarnesCan anything good come out of Oklahoma, or as I call it Okiehoma? Well, sometime in the early 1940 two girls hitchhiked from Oklahoma to California, one them was Wiletta June Clayton. She married Lowell Barnes, had children, worked, got involved in church, and eventually moved to a house they’d built in Don Pedro to retire.Don Pedro really is a great place to live, but when Lowell and Billie moved here it had what was an obvious problem to them, no church. So they made one of the best decisions of their lives, they started one, right in their living room. When the living room got too small they moved to the one room school house where now you find Don Pedro High School. When the one room school house got too small they build the sanctuary we worship in every weekend. It is amazing what God can do when he finds obedient and ready hearts.Think with me for a minute, How much has come to pass and grown out of the obedience of these two retired lay people? How many people in Don Pedro have heard the Gospel, have come to a saving faith in Jesus Christ because Billie and Lowell surrendered their retirement to God? How many have had an opportunity to hear and study the word of God, to find fellowship and love, to receive help in various ways because Billie and Lowell took Jesus’ challenge to “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness” serious?Just a few years into this adventure of beginning our church Lowell became sick and went to glory, but before he died God in his great sense of humor brought in a young German with his family to pastor the church. Thus it was that an Okiehoman widow of a pastor and a Kraut were paired up. Billie made another decision. She decided to support me, to back me up, to pray for me, to relinquish the reigns. She knew how important that was, she understood that each member of our church needs to be faithful even when life brings hard to bear changes; she knew how essential unity is to have a healthy church family. Think about it, how much have we benefited from that decision? I wonder how often and how much I stretched the limits of her patience? Or how often she thought, “What were we thinking when we called him to be our pastor?”I have been asked many times how and why I have stayed so long here at the Lake Don Pedro Baptist Church. It might be that Germans are not as bright as Okiehomans, or maybe it is because Krauts are more stubborn than Okiehomans. But it is much more likely that, beyond the opportunity, my family and I found love here, got to join into simple obedience to Christ, and ran into a widow named Billie who cheered for this church and us to her last breath. So what do you think? Can anything good come out of Oklahoma? Sometime in the early 1940s Billie did.Thank you Billie, your grateful Church family and Pastor.
The Lake Don Pedro Baptist Church Mouse Is Dead!
The Lake Don Pedro Baptist Church Mouse is dead! Of all the ways a mouse could find its demise in the end this true Baptist rodent drowned in the baptistry. However, the jury is out whether or not this was one final act of religious devotion gone wrong or simply a life of heathen rodency catching up.If it was the former then this mouse was seriously deficient in its theology. A good Baptist mouse would have not just gnawed on Bibles but actually have read the scriptures. Then it would have understood that baptism cannot save you. True repentance does not lead one to religious rites but to confession of sin and trusting in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of those sins, because he alone has conquered both sin and death. This mouse would have known that baptism cannot wash away sins but rather is a public confession of faith in Christ, who grants forgiveness of sins based on the sacrifice of himself, his own blood (Hebrews 10:19, 1 John 1:7). This mouse would not have trusted in religious performance but in the mercy and grace God offers everyone through Jesus Christ. And finally this mouse would have been clear on the fact that it was a mouse and not a person, that mice don’t need a savior but that people like you and me do.If it was the latter, which I am inclined to believe (except for the “heathen” part), then this mouse services as a reminder of several truths. Carelessness can kill you, cost you your life, and religious labels offer no protection against it. Stupidity is not confined to just those outside of the church. God gives us one life to live, live it wisely. Being careless with the things of God, or God Himself is dangerous. Death stinks, all of creation yearns to be delivered from it, and Jesus Christ is the only hope for that deliverance (Romans 8:19-39).In 28 years I have seen many things in the baptistry of the Lake Don Pedro Baptist Church, various bugs, an assortment of arachnids (spiders), ants, scorpions, puppeteers, kids hiding, equipment, and one solitary and very dead church mouse. But the very best that has been in our baptistery has been men and women, young and old, who through Jesus Christ found forgiveness of sin, went from death to life, from darkness to light, and were transformed from being enemies of God to children of God. Glad and grateful women, men, young people, and children who were gloriously saved by the love and power of God in Christ. It might be that God is calling you to be one of them.To God be all glory, love you, Pastor Hans
03-25-12 You're invited
You’re invited“Now go out to the street corners and invite everyone you see.” Matthew 22:9 (NLT)It’s one of the dilemmas of wedding preparation, and one of the reasons some just elope – who do you invite? The couple getting married makes a list, and starting with the closest relatives and their very best friends it spirals outward from there. What was originally a small intimate wedding can mushroom into the hundreds, and that’s before the mothers of the bride and groom get to check the list.“What you’re not going to invite the Nonnenmachers who were our neighbors when we lived in Coulterville?”“But Mom, we moved from there when I was four.”“But they still send us a Christmas card every year.”So the list grows, only to run into budgetary constraints. That’s when the folks who were going to be invited are being uninvited and they don’t even know it. And of course great attention has to be paid as to who will get their feelings hurt, and who has invited you in the past. Any misstep here can cause hard feelings that have the potential to linger for decades (I am not making this up).Long before the happy couple has to craft a guest list for their wedding they will have gained experience in this sort of thing going way back to kindergarten. Oh the headaches and politics of birthday party invitations. Since your Mom was in all likelihood very smart she probably said something like, “You can invite five friends to your birthday party.” See what I mean, because right there you were faced with a cut line. Sure, you knew you could squeeze a few more out of your Mom, seven, eight, and if you were really good even ten. Yup, I remember it well the social jockeying of those formative years. The girls, however, they had levels of drama and manipulation us boys could only dream of.I am glad I will never know how many times I have been scratched off an invitation list, aren’t you. And I know that unless something really crazy happens my name will not appear on Hollywood’s A-list, nor is it likely my name will appear on an invitation to the White House. I did get an invitation to appear in traffic court once.Somehow though my name, and yours, appears on the most important invitation list of all – God’s. Unbelievable you and I are invited to be part of the Jesus’ wedding feast in the kingdom of heaven. And in fact God is still sending out more invitations, we get to invite all of our friends, there is no cut line, no budgetary constraints, no politics to be played, no drama to avoid. All are invited, so let them know.What great words, “You are invited,” especially when they come from God. I am going, are you?To God be the glory, love you, Pastor Hans